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Dori: Covington kids did nothing wrong despite assumptions of media

Jan 21, 2019, 2:37 PM

Covington, viral video, national media...

In this Friday, Jan. 18, 2019 image made from video provided by the Survival Media Agency, a teenager wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat, center left, stands in front of an elderly Native American singing and playing a drum in Washington.(Survival Media Agency via AP)

(Survival Media Agency via AP)

Was this the weekend where journalism finally died in the United States? I cannot remember a worse weekend for mainstream media; everyone should be aware of the kind of filter you’re getting your news through from the networks.

Over the weekend, a video surfaced and went wild on social media showing a bunch of kids from a Catholic high school in Covington, Kentucky who were attending the March for Life in Washington, D.C. At one point, one of the kids is seen in the face of a Native American Vietnam vet who playing a drum, as his Covington classmates chanted behind him. The Native American playing the drum, Nathan Phillips, claimed that the kids were chanting, “Build the wall.”

Based on that video, we saw a meltdown from the left — that means ABC, NBC, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post. These Covington kids are the most evil and vile human beings to the Progressive media.

Why? Some of them were wearing “Make America Great Again” baseball caps, so they like the president. Strike one. They are predominantly white. Strike two. They were at a pro-life march. Strike three.

RELATED: Teen attacked in Seattle over MAGA hat

Ah, but this is a different game with more strikes than just three. These kids were not responding the way that the protesters wanted. They didn’t just join in with the radical groups at the Lincoln Memorial with them. They are also Christians, and as we know, the Progressive media hates Christians.

The kids had all of these things lined up against them. What started circulating was that the kid who ends up nose-to-nose with Nathan Phillips pounding the drum had a smirk on his face. That’s when the tweets started flying.

A guy who goes by Uncle Shoes on Twitter — who is followed by, among others, Barack Obama — suggested, “Lock the kids in the school and burn that b**** to the ground.”

Plenty of celebrities like Kathy Griffin and Patton Oswalt were suggesting that people get the names and addresses of the kids, go to their houses, and inflict violence on them. One Democratic Congressman even suggested banning teenagers from wearing MAGA hats.

The New York Times’ headline read, “Boys in ‘Make America Great Again’ hats mob Native elder.” Even conservative media outlets like the National Review turned against them, comparing the kids with Roman soldiers and Nathan Phillips with Jesus carrying the cross.

There is only one problem: There were videos of the entire encounter, adding up to over an hour. There is zero evidence that any of the kids shouted, “Build the wall.” There were a couple of groups there — the Native American group and a group called the Black Hebrew Israelites, a radical group that despises homosexuals, among other things.

Then people started seeing that viral clip in a little more context. One of the Native Americans yelled, “Go back to Europe where you came from.” The Black Hebrew Israelites can be heard in the video screaming, “Your president is a homosexual,” and “You proud of sodomy? You give that [expletive] rights.”

Here’s what really happened: Because they heard all of these slurs being screamed at them, one of the Covington kids suggested bringing positive energy to a hateful place by doing some of their school chants, all of which are positive and appropriate.

While they were doing that, Nathan Phillips walked right up to the kid and started pounding the drum in his face. He is the instigator. The Black Hebrews were instigators, screaming at the kids. The Covington kids did nothing wrong.

Nick Sandmann, the kid who became the face of the viral video, released a statement explaining what happened. Here is an excerpt of what he said:

The protestors [sic] said hateful things. They called us ‘racists,’ ‘bigots,’ ‘white crackers,’ ‘[gay slur],’ and ‘incest kids.’ They also taunted an African American student from my school by telling him that we would ‘harvest his organs.’ I have no idea what that insult means, but it was startling to hear.

Because we were being loudly attacked and taunted in public, a student in our group asked one of our teacher chaperones for permission to begin our school spirit chants to counter the hateful things that were being shouted at our group. The chants are commonly used at sporting events. They are all positive in nature and sound like what you would hear at any high school. Our chaperone gave us permission to use our school chants. We would not have done that without obtaining permission from the adults in charge of our group.

At no time did I hear any student chant anything other than the school spirit chants. I did not witness or hear any students chant “build that wall” or anything hateful or racist at any time. Assertions to the contrary are simply false. Our chants were loud because we wanted to drown out the hateful comments that were being shouted at us by the protestors [sic] …

I have received physical and death threats via social media, as well as hateful insults. One person threatened to harm me at school, and one person claims to live in my neighborhood. My parents are receiving death and professional threats because of the social media mob that has formed over this issue.

Now there is a mad rush on Twitter by journalists like Jake Tapper and Ana Navarro from CNN, the New York Times’ Kara Swisher, and Sinclair chief political correspondent Scott Thuman to delete their tweets from over the weekend.

Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams posted a video apology for his tweets. Patton Oswalt deleted his tweet that linked to another tweet suggesting people dox the teeens.

The parents have a lawyer who has offered to represent them in lawsuits against the individual journalists and news networks and Hollywood celebrities, because they all jumped on board a completely false narrative.

I’m not big on ridiculous lawsuits, but in this case, I would love to see CNN, MSNBC, Patton Oswalt, and Kathy Griffin get sued. If I were the parent of one of these kids and saw my child’s life turned upside down, I would file a massive lawsuit.

These are powerful networks with unbelievable resources accusing children of things that were completely untrue.

Journalism is dead in America.

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Dori: Covington kids did nothing wrong despite assumptions of media